[Lex2]

Saw this interesting webpage about tone deafness and overall pitch perception ability designed by a researcher at the Beth Israel Medical School. He claims the test is very hard and that excellent musicians rarely score above 80%, which I find difficult to believe (but perhaps that is just the way it is).

Tonedeaf Test: Test your musical skills in 6 minutes!

I got 34 correct out of 36 so I guess I am in the wrong profession.

I'd probably make an impatient music teacher since I do find myself very, very sensitive to relative and absolute pitch differences which I find more an annoyance and a curse than anything else. Nevertheless take the results with a pinch of salt but the test itself is quite fun and interesting.

 

[lonereaction]

I only got 30 correct. 83.3% Kind of tired, but not an excuse. I'm normal!
Oh, I don't believe that musicians can get over 80%. I have tried piano and guitar for fun when I was younger, and sucked hard at both.

 

[mcmurray]

I can't open the link at work, but is the test concerned with relative pitch or perfect pitch?

 

[rehabitat]

That was a fun and challenging test. I thought I was going to flunk it but got 32/36. I got nos. 10, 14, 30 & 33 wrong.

To put my result it in some perspective, I had seven years of musical training at school but nothing for twenty years now. It may have helped that some of the music I listen to is rather chaotic, random and/or dissonant.

 

[rehabitat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcmurray /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't open the link at work, but is the test concerned with relative pitch or perfect pitch?

"The test you are about to take was used as a screening test to roughly characterize a patient’s pitch discrimination and musical memory abilities. Even though musical memory is strongly tested here, we have found that people who are tonedeaf tend to have normal musical memories."

 

[Ridleyguy]

I was tested at our Conservatory a number of years ago, and was told that I had nearly perfect pitch, although I don't know whether or not the test was an accepted methodology for determining this. The test consisted of my piano teacher playing various notes on the piano while I had my back turned to it, and then I had to replicate the notes he played. It didn't seem very scientific to me!

 

[Ridleyguy]

It's late at night for me, but I tried the test anyway and scored 83.3%.

 

[Rempert]

88.9% for me.

This is mostly a memory test, but having good interval recognition surely doesn't hurt. I don't think perfect pitch really has any bearing here, although I'd guess that people with perfect pitch probably have good music memory as well.

 

[Lex2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ridleyguy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was tested at our Conservatory a number of years ago, and was told that I had nearly perfect pitch, although I don't know whether or not the test was an accepted methodology for determining this. The test consisted of my piano teacher playing various notes on the piano while I had my back turned to it, and then I had to replicate the notes he played. It didn't seem very scientific to me!

I never had to do a test like this when learning piano and violin a long time ago but I do remember being really bad at sight reading but finding it much, much easier (and a lot quicker) to learn a piece by ear instead. When looking at sheet music for the first time my initial instinct would be to imagine what the piece would sound like in my head before attempting to play it. But if told to play some new piece of music directly from the score without "practicing" in my head first I would get confused really quickly!

 

[SoulSyde]

I'm 16.7% tonedeaf, I'll take it. ; )

 

[Ridleyguy]

I agree with the comment made by Rempert that the online test is partly a memory test as well as a pitch test.

Lex2, to your comments on studying music, interestingly I went back to the Conservatory here as an adult to study piano after a number of years away from it, and my comment to the teachers at the time was that piano teaching methods hadn't changed a whole lot in thirty years! I much prefer now to listening to the piano being played well, rather than attempting to play it myself!